Be Here
by smidget
Summary: Harry hasn't really come home. Not yet. Harry/Ginny post-DH, post-battle, pre-epilogue.


**Disclaimer - I own nothing.**

**Be Here**

Things were now, as they had not been for a long time, awkward around Harry. It was not a blushing and stammering sort of awkward – not the awkward of an eleven-year-old girl in the presence of her childhood hero – but rather a silent one, and an empty one. Ginny was no longer afraid to talk to Harry as she had been years ago – now she feared she had nothing left to say to him.

Not that he was ever there to speak to. Since returning to the Burrow Harry spent most of his time shut up in Ron's room or, when he was not there, out in the thicket behind the chicken coop. Although they hardly spoke more than a few words to each other in passing Ginny always seemed to know where Harry was. He spent his days in silence, isolated perhaps from the company of Ginny and her family but surrounded constantly, she suspected, by demons in memories.

However Harry's silence was not so unusual considering the mood in the Burrow these days and no one mentioned it. Everything in her childhood home was quieter than it used to be. Mum never shouted, Ginny never turned up the wireless, _no one_ ever laughed. After the first few days back in the house there were not so many tears anymore, except at night when Ginny knew she was not the only one crying herself to sleep.

Harry did not look as though he slept at all anymore. There were always dark circles under his eyes and his hair was messier than it ever had been, as though he never stopped running his hands through it. There was stubble on his chin and cheeks and all this, combined with his thin frame, made him look as much an escaped prisoner as Sirius had on breaking out of Azkaban. His eyes even had the look of someone who spent too much time around Dementors.

Ginny knew that Hermione was spending her nights in Ron's room and had heard, almost every night, the sound of the kitchen door creaking after everyone had gone to bed. At first this had worried her until she realized that it was not someone _entering_ the house, but someone leaving it. Hermione may have been spending the night in the room below the attic, but Harry was not.

It was not until the middle of June that Ginny worked up the curiosity to follow Harry. Very little had held her interest for long in the days following Hogwarts but Harry's nighttime wanderings certainly did. If nothing else pondering his whereabouts was better than lying awake in her stifling room thinking about Fred and death and George and Colin and crying _again_ until she fell asleep.

And so, on a particularly humid evening in June Ginny bid her family goodnight and retreated to her room but made no move towards her bed. Instead she perched on the windowsill, her sleeveless top clinging to her back in the heat, one leg dangling towards the ground and one hugged tightly towards her chest. And she waited. She waited while the sun finished setting below the trees and while the sounds of the Burrow gradually faded with the last light of day. She waited only half-heartedly for Hermione to come crawl in the camp bed Mum had set up for her but knew it more likely the bushy-haired brunette was upstairs with Ron. Which meant Harry would be on his way downstairs any moment –

And then she spotted him. It was clear even in the dim light that his shoulders were hunched, his hands shoved in his pockets. His feet carried him forward with the air of one who had traveled the same path countless times and no longer needed conscious direction. Hurriedly, so as not to lose sight of him, Ginny spun from her seat on the windowsill and sped hastily and quietly from the house.

She could still see him when she stepped lightly out of the backdoor, her hands instinctively out behind her to stop the door from slamming. She padded down the worn stone steps and into the grass, which felt cool and fresh on her bare feet.

The night air felt wonderful on her skin and it smelled like rain though none was falling from the clouds. Rather than hurry after Harry, Ginny followed him at a leisurely pace and focused intently on the feel of the dirt under her toes. As she would have suspected, Harry did not wander far from the house, but it was far enough so as to be sufficiently isolated. The Burrow was still visible in the distance, but it was just a dark mass alone atop the hill. It was wooded here, if sparsely, and quiet, and Ginny could see at once why Harry came to this particular spot. Even in the darkness it was beautiful. When Harry stopped at the trunk of a large maple Ginny caught up with him easily and he heard her footsteps.

In an instant he twisted towards her, wand in hand before she could blink and she froze on the spot. She was not at all surprised by such a reaction and and it passed quickly. Recognition flooded instantly across Harry's features and his wand was in his pocket again in one fluid movement.

"You startled me," he said quietly, evenly, hoarsely because he had not used his voice much of late.

"I didn't mean to," she answered, though she was not exactly sorry to have startled him. She was… indifferent. Indifference was new when it came to her feelings towards Harry and it upset something deep inside of her.

Now that she was here, standing in the dark woods with Harry, alone, Ginny could not think of anything to say. She was not entirely certain why she had followed him except that it was a nice distraction from her usual nighttime thoughts. Harry appeared at a loss as well. His hand went instinctively to ruffle the hair at the back of his head. It was an endearing and familiar gesture and Ginny felt slightly more at ease.

"Why do come out here at night?" she asked him quietly, her gaze never wavering from his face. Harry on the other hand broke eye contact and looked around at the dark canopy of tree branches above them and shrugged.

"Good a place as any," he said and almost smiled.

"For what?"

Now Harry looked down at the ground, at the surrounding trees, at anything but her. "It's quiet," he said at last. "And it reminds me of…." But he trailed off and didn't finish that particular thought. For a moment his eyes went out of focus and his thoughts appeared to be somewhere else entirely. This passed quickly and he shook his head slightly. Harry met her eyes again briefly before turning to seat himself against the base of the maple tree.

"Why did you follow me?" Harry asked quietly and Ginny, still standing, shifted her weight and shrugged before she realized he could not see the gesture. He was facing away from her but she could tell from his still posture that he was focused, aware of her.

But she did not have an answer to his question, not a decent one anyway. It had been a whim, a distraction, the first thing to rouse her curiosity in quite some time, but for some reason it did not feel right to tell Harry any of that. So instead of saying anything she took a few steps closer and sat next to him under the maple tree, her feet stretched out in front of her, her pale freckled legs even paler in the murky light. A breeze was picking up.

"So do you sleep at all anymore?" Ginny inquired after some time. "Or do you sit out here all night and _brood?"_

She could not resist the slightly scathing tone her words had taken at the end, and they were like a spark lighting in her.

She could see Harry scowl from the corner of her eye. "I'm not _brooding_," he retorted, though not as vehemently as he could have, "I just like it here. It can get a little stifling in the house."

"You mean it can get a little _crowded_. Not keen to share a room with Ron and Hermione? Had enough of that over the last few months?"

"They weren't a couple then. I can't decide which is worse." But she could practically hear him smirking and knew he was only teasing.

"Yes, well, I'm fairly certain you and I are the only ones who know about that particular sleeping arrangement. I wouldn't say anything to Mum if I were you."

"Please, I don't have a death wish."

"_Anymore_," Ginny snapped and then clapped a hand to her mouth. She had not meant to say it, had not even known she was thinking it, and now she wished she could take it back. Harry had gone very still next to her.

"Harry – "

"What's _that _supposed to mean?"

"I didn't mean it – "

"Yes you did," Harry cut her off again, his voice clipped and quiet.

And, after a very brief moment of internal reflection, Ginny realized that he was right. She _had_ meant it.

She tucked some of her hair behind her ear. "Well what am I supposed to think? You vanished for _months_, Harry, and then you show up at Hogwarts out of nowhere, and, when everything's gone to absolute shite you disappear off into the forest and the next thing we hear is that you're – "

"-dead," Harry finished for her. "I know all that, and I'm sorry, but I had to. You don't understand. I didn't _want_ to go– "

Ginny laughed mirthlessly and pulled her legs up to her chest. She felt sad and angry and it was just such a relief to be feeling _anything_ that she could not bring herself to stop snapping back at Harry.

"How am I supposed to understand anything when you lot won't tell me what happened? I know you had something important to do but it's over now, Harry. Voldemort's _gone_."

"I know," Harry whispered.

"Then what are you afraid of?"

Harry turned to look at her and, even though it was getting continuously darker as thick clouds rolled in above them she could still see the spark of something in his eyes.

"I'm not afraid," he said evenly. "I thought, when this was all over, that it would be easy to tell you everything but the way things are now, I just can't."

Ginny furrowed her brow and pulled her legs a little tighter to her. "The way things are now?"

Harry opened his mouth to say something, paused, and then closed it again. His stoic expression broke for just a second into terrible sadness but she blinked and that was gone. He shook his head and turned away from her again, staring out through the thin line of trees. The wind was blowing harder now and it pulled at her long hair but she ignored it.

"No," she said stubbornly. "The way things are now? How are things now, Harry, that you can't talk to anyone? Have we offended you somehow, have we done something horrible and unforgiveable that you can't stand to be in the same room with anyone for more than five minutes?"

Harry sighed and ran a shaky hand through his hair and Ginny could tell from the way his shoulders slumped that he wished he had not said anything at all. They were talking - _really _talking - for the first time in weeks, months really and a very small part of her wanted to upset him. Most of her did not.

"Everything's… broken," he said in a hollow voice and again his features slipped into a sorrowful frown. He glanced up at what little sky was visible and looked, among other things that were not as clear, lost. Ginny's heart seemed to twist just looking at him and some of her anger faded.

"Broken," she whispered. "Harry, we're not broken – "

"But you are." He blinked slowly and Ginny watched the muscles in his jaw clench. "All of you are. And you're all I have left and I don't want – " he swallowed convulsively and stopped.

Ginny was torn between offense and sympathy and after a brief internal debate decided that offense could wait. She reached out and rested a hand on his forearm and felt a tingle in her fingertips. He opened his eyes again, looked down at her hand, and then finally met her eyes.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," he said, and it struck Ginny that she had never heard him say such a thing before. Harry had endured so many hardships and never once had she heard him complain that it wasn't fair – he carried on, because he was _Harry_, because he had to. Perhaps, for the first time, he did not have to carry the weight of it all anymore. He could stop and breathe and grieve – and it was suffocating him.

"I just keep thinking about how different things would be if Fred was still here." Ginny's grip tightened at the sound of her brother's name and her chest constricted but she did not look away from Harry's profile. "Your mum wouldn't be so sad all the time and George wouldn't be so angry and you – "

Harry stopped abruptly and Ginny felt her breath hitch.

"What about me?"

"You wouldn't feel so indifferent toward me. You might be happy."

It was like a slap in the face, not because it was cruel or mean or tactless – it was not any of those things, it was worse. It was true. But she opened her mouth to deny it anyway. "I haven't…," but she trailed off without finishing the thought and removed her hand from Harry's arm. He did not seem to notice.

"I haven't felt much of anything lately," she muttered, wiggling her toes in the dirt. But now she had a moment to think about it – really think about it – this conversation with Harry marked the first time in weeks that she had truly felt angry or sympathetic. Indeed it was one of the longest conversations she had held in days and it was – nice, even if they were talking about unpleasant things.

"You all have each other," Harry went on, as if Ginny had not spoken. "Ron has Hermione, and George has you, and you're all coping. And I'm coping too, honestly, I just… I just don't fit here anymore."

The way he said it – with such finality, resignation, poorly-concealed despair – broke something inside of her.

She opened her mouth to say something, to tell him he was wrong, but she did not seem to have the breath for it and so she watched him and she waited. In the silence between them she heard a soft patter on the leaves above them a drop of water fell to the ground by her feet. She looked out through the trees and saw a gentle summer rain starting but under the canopy she and Harry stayed relatively dry.

"I'm so sorry, Ginny," Harry said earnestly, turning to look at her. Ginny looked at her knees.

"I know," she said simply. "But none of this is your fault, Harry."

"I know," he replied. "But I'm still sorry."

The rain was falling harder now, more of it breaking through the thin canopy above them. Ginny could feel the cool drops soak slowly through her hair. A few of them splashed lightly on her knees and feet and shoulders.

"It won't always be like this," Ginny said, looking out at the rain. "It'll get better. It won't ever be the same again but… you'll always fit here, Harry."

"And what about with you?"

Startled, Ginny did not know how to answer that question. What about with her? What about with Harry? He was right, it was never supposed to be like this. Fred was supposed to be here and her family was supposed to be whole and happy. Maybe they were broken. Maybe she was.

But she refused to accept that. Broken was so final, so unrelenting. They were perhaps more like a crumpled piece of parchment. You would never get all the wrinkles out but it was still whole, intact – just a scar here and there that would fade with time even if they never disappeared completely.

Harry was staring at her, waiting, rain falling into his hair and tamping it down.

"I miss you," she said finally, and with these simple words more came tumbling out of. "You were gone all year and even though you came back you never really… _came back_. You avoid everyone and you never talk to us. And I'm not angry with you or upset that you left or any of that, I just… I miss you. So if I've been indifferent or distant it's only because you're never around long enough for anything else."

Her voice started to waver and she steadied herself. "And you're right, Harry, it was never supposed to be this way. Fred's gone. And so is Colin. And Tonks, and Remus and a lot of other people… but _you're_ still here so - just - _be here_."

It was starting to pour now and in the wake of her speech Ginny could here distant rumbles of thunder. The leaves above them could no longer shield them from the rain and she blinked away the drops clinging to her eyelashes. Harry stared at her, his hair the closest to lying flat that she had ever seen it. It made him look different, smaller. His vivid green eyes were fixed on hers and she waited, holding her breath, for him to say something, anything.

But he didn't. He didn't say a word. Instead, the next thing Ginny knew he had wrapped his arms around her and was holding her close to his chest. She was momentarily stunned, overwhelmed by his touch, his smell, his warmth, and then she wrapped her arms around his back. At the close physical contact emotions came flooding back into Ginny that had been so buried and dormant that she had nearly forgotten they were there. They stayed that way for a long time, soaked in the rain and burrowed into each other. Ginny clung to Harry tightly and buried her face in the space between his shoulder and his neck and felt, really _felt _for the first time, that Harry was coming home.

* * *

**AN. Just a short little something I wrote at work today that came out of nowhere. Surprise one-shot! Happens.**


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